Gardening-WTF?! Dogs to the rescue

We’re frustrated, pissed and have had reached our limit when it comes to our resident and persistent possums. These thieves have been stalking our precious kalamansi lime tree and devouring all of the fruit. We noticed that the kalamansi limes were disappearing from the tree faster than we can eat or drink them. At first we accused each other of hogging the delicious fruit, and not sharing with one another. But after a few watchful days, we knew the perpetrator was someone or something else. There’s been a long history of gardening warfare between us and the possums. They’ve stolen our persimmons, assaulted our tomatoes, decapitated our broccoli plants and now are partaking in a citrus felony.

Granted, the kalamansi limes are fragrant and addicting, but never in our gardening experience did we ever think they’d attack sour citrus.

Luckily the other day, Dante and Sierra sighted one of the damn possums hovering above the garden, clinging to the telephone wire. Our dogs were awake and ready to defend OUR territory, OUR garden and OUR fruit! The presence of two big, vicious (they fake it well) and hungry K-9’s underneath pretty much scared the crap out of the possum. They had him frozen on the wire for over an hour, going into a frenzy every time he would move the slightest inch. Serves the little bastard right!

Dante, aka: flying dog, was jumping as high in the air as possible to get the possum, while Sierra was patiently waiting underneath for the prized possum catch. They worked as a great team. Sierra ever vigilant, but lacking the hops for any true menacing threat. Dante, the wonderdog, would grow bored at the possum’s stillness, and would wander off until Sierra alerted him to the possum’s movements. Then the two would whip up into an attack mania that would have cornered a lion.

I love watching dogs go fer the big game. My Hambone (bluetick coon hound) and Diggedy (morbidly obese beagle) have jumping contests when they see pigeons on top of the barn. They bark so hard and put so much effort into leaping that I swear one of these days they’ll actually take flight -the dogs, that is- and nail those irritating winged rodents.

And we shoo coyotes and foxes away from our chickens using salt shot in a regular shot gun. It gives ’em a nice stinger without being lethal. We stopped having them snoop around the coop within a couple days of employing the salt shot. I highly recommend it!

I saw those limes in our natural foods store, sitting on the counter and they told me I could have one to try, that they were limes. Now I know what kind of limes, and want to plant one. I’m for the bb gun solution. You’d be shooting up in the air, so wouldn’t hurt any neighbors.

Have you tried luring the possums with peanut butter? I had mice eating my Mexican cornbread mix in my apartment in college and I got ’em with peanut butter on the traps. I bet possums would go for it too. (Not that I’m advocating cruelty to animals – not one bit. But nobody messes with my Mexican cornbread. Or your limes.)

We found out last summer that it was the possums and squirels eating our garden, they love Meyer Lemons, tomatoes and pumkpins – came home to find a squirel sitting on the door step, like he was home! Good luck & hope the dogs get them!

Look, you two (four)… the possums just figured out what everyone knows – that your backyard is PARADISE. But I love seeing Dante jumping so high! What a pupper. Good ole Sierra would *never* hurt a possum 😉 Good guard dogs you have there!!

That must be incredibly irritating, but lol, good on the dogs for defending the homefront! I’m too lousy at growing anything to have this problem, but if I did have anything growing, I’d be furious…although it sure would be a great thing to keep the dogs occupied

That’s pretty funny. Back in college we could never figure out why our dog was so hungry… until we saw the possums eating up all of the food! Those dirty little creatures are tough to keep out of the yards here in CA.

Oh how I know about this. I had loquat and avocado trees in a home many years ago, and a sweet but Protector of the Castle Staffordshire Terrier, Mrs. Cooper. Many a possum thought this was a farmers market. Unfortunately for the critters, she was an aggressive hunter, and they did not live long after venturing into the yard. Sorry to say it was gross, the possums were always covered with fleas, and more than once Coop brought the prize into the dining room for me to see when I woke up in the morning. Good luck with your situation.
LL

Good thing you have your dogs catch those culprits. Hahaha!:D As for the pic, I was terribly laughin at your dog jumping desperately to catch him. Oh well, I really appreciate the pictures. I hope you could upload some more. God Bless!

Deer are my arch nemesis–and so your post really cracked me up. Sadly my dogs rarely catch the offenders in the act and instead want to pee on everything to mark their territory! Luckily, no animal has ever acted interested in my prize citrus which lives outside int he summer, my kaffir lime tree. If they did I might invest in a shotgun! Just kidding. I think.

HAHAHAHA. you’re killing me! you must really hate those possums to spend all this time working in photoshop 😉 your pups are so cute, too! and i like that your first instinct was to think the other one of you two was stealing and hoarding it! you sound like me and nick 😉

a good bb gun or a pellet gun! my aunt who is such a beautiful lady who has a gentlewomens farm (i call ger matha stewart) she sits outside dressed wonderfully as ever and shoots those little bastards that come into her garden. ugly little f*cks.

A weak BB gun like a Daisy Red Rider won’t kill them but it will annoy the hell out of the possums and they are silent. Think how fun it would be to sit in the back yard with a drink and bean the furry little ba***rds till they run off.

A more powerful air rifle will kill them and are still really quiet. Your neighbors probably won’t know what the sound is.

My problem critters are ground squirrels and moose. I shoot the ground squirrels with a .22 but the moose get yelled at. My dog kills the ground squirrels by the dozen too. Go dogs!

Have you invested in a good sling shot yet? I’d suggest a b.b. gun – but your neighbors are probably a little too close for that! Our big problem is deer – over fifty of them. Garden steaks supporting a big tent of strawberry netting is the only solution I’ve found to keep our tomatoes from disappearing fast.